It finally happened. That moment I’ve been dreading but knew would eventually come happened. My mother didn’t recognize me.
She sat across the table from me and asked me if my parents were still living. This is so much my mother. Gracious. Connecting, Reaching out. Here is a stranger across from her and she wants them to feel welcomed. Wants to bring them into the conversation. Wants to bring me into the conversation.
And it reminds me of her cure for depression or feeling blue. When she was feeling down, she’d do something nice for someone else. On Mother’s Day, for example, she and some of her friends would get flowers and drop them off at other women’s houses who either didn’t have children, or didn’t have children who “showed up’ in that way.
To my surprise, my reaction wasn’t about me, wasn’t hurt that my mother didn’t recognize me. My reaction was for her. I wanted to protect her from her mental slip. Wanted to protect her from the pain of realizing that she’d forgotten her own daughter. I didn’t want her to be embarrassed or frightened that she’d forgotten who I was.
And I had no idea about what to say or do to protect her from this pain. Fortunately my father piped in. He wrapped his arm around her and said something like, “Oh Billie! We’re here parents and neither of us is dead yet!” And he did it so warmly, and so tenderly that the moment passed almost as if it never happened, at least not for her.
And yet for me, it did happen. And I have to sort out all those feelings of grief — for her, for me, for us.
My mother asked a similar question: “now, whose daughter are you?”
I don’t remember what I told her, but I felt like saying, “nobody’s, anymore.”
Hard moments.
Cheryl,
Thanks. Yeah… it’s tough. And such a horrible, awful condition.
Again, my heart breaks for you and I admire your bravery for sharing your journey. Peace be with you, today, Reggie.